


outset

by pockettreatpete



Category: Political RPF - US 21st c.
Genre: First Date, First Time, M/M, otp: wait that's my word
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-22
Updated: 2020-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:15:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21526066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pockettreatpete/pseuds/pockettreatpete
Summary: Chasten and Peter try to find their way into... Well, whatever this is.
Relationships: Chasten Buttigieg/Peter Buttigieg
Comments: 50
Kudos: 125





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> If this one's slow going, I'm sorry. I am trying to force myself to finish by posting part one, so fingers crossed?
> 
> Big thanks to crimson, chastened and ellie who have all betaed this

There _were_ non-awkward ways to end a date. Just because Chasten couldn’t quite think of any right now it wasn’t any less true. This though, this was definitely awkward, driving Peter-of-the-unpronounceable-last-name home after making out under _literal_ fireworks. (Preliminary verdict: Peter was definitely not a _great_ kisser but eager as hell and had a lot of the right instincts and was maybe probably just in need of practice?)

Glancing over, Chasten caught Peter watching him with a smile. He didn’t look anywhere near as awkward as Chasten felt. Peter looked… content?

“You’re watching me,” Chasten said as neutrally as he could manage, keeping his eyes on the road.

“I had a really good time tonight.” 

Chasten had to smile.

“Me too. Really good. Like, did you time the fireworks, or…?”

Peter chuckled, and a little thrill that was already starting to feel dangerously familiar rippled up the back of Chasten’s neck. God, this was not a good sign, he could not be this invested already in making Peter-_the-fucking-mayor_-of-South-Bend-Indiana laugh. It was way, way too soon to be digging around the corners of his brain for more ways he could make the crooks of Peter’s eyes crinkle and his cheeks flush and his head duck. 

“I wish I was that smooth,” Peter said. 

“No, you don’t. That would be way too smooth.” Chasten thought for a moment. “You’d be a teflon pan.”

Peter laughed again. Dammit, it was like a positive feedback loop and that joke wasn’t even good. Chasten was about to say something more, though he wasn‘t sure what, when Peter said “This next left” and suddenly they were back on his street. 

“So, how far up in Michigan are you heading tonight, anyway?”

“Oh, home,” Chasten said, pulling up in front of Peter’s house. He looked over to see Peter frowning. 

“Isn’t Traverse City like a three-hour drive?”

He shrugged. “Probably more like four.”

“That’s a long drive to start at eleven thirty.” Peter’s face took on a pensive look that Chasten wasn’t entirely sure he felt safe being around. 

“Which is why we were meeting for coffee. Before I, like an idiot, forgot that rush hour traffic is a thing,” he reminded him ruefully. “But it’s okay, I like driving at night.”

“Sure,” Peter replied. He paused for a beat. “Look, if you want.” He swallowed. “I have a guest room that you could…”

A disappointed sigh fought to escape Chasten’s chest. He honestly hadn’t expected sweet-and-cautious-and-inexperienced-Peter to go in for the kill on the first date. That was a not inconsiderable part of why he’d agreed to the date in the first place: He’d felt sure he wouldn’t be faced with the usually omnipresent conundrum of his dating life, namely ‘will turning down sex on the first date eliminate the opportunity for a second?’ But okay, sure. He could do this. Peter was cute and very new at this and it probably wouldn’t take much to make him happy. Also relevant: It had been a long week and he really was kind of too tired to drive all the way home. 

“That sounds great,” he said, putting up the brightest smile he could muster. 

Peter showed him around the first floor – “It’s really less of a house right now than a bunch of DIY projects stacked on top of each other, but it’s getting there” – and made them coffee. Chasten leaned on the kitchen island and looked around. The house was nice–– 

Actually, that wasn’t entirely true. The house had a lot of _potential_ to be nice, but it was pretty obvious that its occupant was, to put it mildly, not _totally_ single-minded in his DIY zeal. Chasten took the proffered cup of coffee, followed Peter into the living room and sat next to him on the couch. 

“You didn’t finish your story about the 4H project,” Peter prompted. 

Chasten blinked. It was easily an hour and a half ago that he’d started telling Peter about a civic engagement project that had gone hilariously haywire. Before they held hands along the river, before the kissing, before the awkward drive back to the house. He’d half-expected Peter to clumsily pounce as soon as they sat down, but Peter was cradling his coffee mug and smiling, waiting for the rest of Chasten’s story. 

The next time he looked at the time it was almost one in the morning. Peter had a focus that made it so easy to just… talk. It made Chasten feel like whatever he said was worthwhile and interesting, which if nothing else was a nice change of pace from the dates he’d been on lately. 

There was a lull in conversation, and Peter leaned in for a kiss. Chasten slid an arm over his shoulder, pulling him closer. Peter was a quick learner, and his confidence certainly seemed to be growing by the minute. Chasten pulled a move he was secretly kind of proud of, tugging Peter the last few inches over and taking hold behind his knee, pulling to land him straddled across Chasten’s lap. 

“Oh,” Peter said, looking vaguely dazed. Chasten smiled. The thing about inexperienced guys was that they were easy to impress. He slid his hand into Peter’s hair and drew him back into a kiss, swallowing Peter’s pleased moan and pulling him closer.

“Hey,” Peter said, between kisses.

“Yeah,” Chasten mumbled against Peter’s lips. He blinked when there was suddenly air between them, and raised his eyebrow when Peter clambered back out of his lap to sit next to him again.

“I just-- Just for the record,” Peter said, breathing hard, and Chasten felt his heart sink. ‘Just for the record’ rarely preceded something good. Peter bit his lip in an extremely cute way. “I really _do_ have a guest room. I wasn’t trying to put the moves on you.” 

Incredulousness mixed with acute relief and made Chasten laugh harder than was technically warranted.

“Put the moves on me? What decade are you from?”

Peter smiled, seemingly unfazed by mild-to-moderate mockery.

“Okay, my vocab needs some work. My point is, I wouldn’t want you to think that the offer to stay over was incumbent upon —” his smile gave way to a serious expression as he gestured vaguely between them “— this.”

Chasten bit the inside of his cheek. Was this guy for real? 

“So you’re not trying to get in my pants?” He wanted to cringe at how sharply he phrased himself but Peter was still just smiling benignly. 

“At this point I’m pretty much hoping we’re mutually interested in getting in each other’s pants in due time, but I don’t generally think of the first date as ‘due time’.”

Peter met him in another kiss, long and deep, and Chasten clung on to him. God, if Peter did make a move right then he could _definitely_ get it, but he wasn’t going to and Chasten was unbearably relieved. He rested his hand at the nape of Peter’s neck and let the other run up and down his side, making him shiver. He wasn’t entirely sure how long they sat facing each other on the couch, trading kisses and mostly innocent caresses, but finally Peter sat back. 

“I think it’s time for bed,” he said, breathless and sheepish.

Peter walked ahead of Chasten up the stairs and he had to restrain himself from reaching out to palm Peter’s perfect-looking ass. Pete showed him the guest room and pointed to the bathroom door, before leaning in slowly to capture Chasten’s lips in a long, soft kiss. It was perfectly innocent, their bodies barely touching, but at the same time so sweetly erotic that Chasten’s knees threatened to give in. Pete pulled back slightly, smiling against Chasten’s lips before giving him a final, close-mouthed kiss.

“Good night,” he said, before turning down the hall and closing his bedroom door behind him. Chasten went to brush his teeth and tried to calm his galloping heartbeat.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So if you've heard me talking about this fic you know I had bigger plans for it than just... this. I was planning on writing the whole weekend, and bits of the next week, too, but I'm just. not. getting. there. So I'm giving you what I have now and hope you'll enjoy it, and I'll come back and add new chapters if inspiration ever rears its head on this storyline again.

Chasten woke up to the sun in his eye the next morning. As he blinked himself awake, he could hear Peter wandering around downstairs. As he got dressed, he hoped to God it wouldn’t be awkward. 

Peter was in the kitchen, looking chipper and freshly showered. He smiled when Chasten appeared in the doorway. 

“Hi.”

“Hi,” Chasten replied and took the cup of coffee he was offered. Their fingers brushed, and Peter smiled at him. Chasten wanted to kiss that smiling mouth, but instead he sipped his coffee and surveyed the kitchen island. “You made breakfast.”

“I did,” Peter said. 

He was wearing a plaid shirt that looked soft and homey, as lived-in as the house, and Chasten itched to touch him.

“How long have you been up?” 

Chasten let his eyes linger on Peter’s back while he did something to the eggs on the stove. The desire to run his hands over the worn flannel and the muscles he knew were underneath it shocked even him. 

“A couple of hours. I went for a quick run.“

“I slept through it,” Chasten said, grimacing. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m glad you slept well,” Peter said, smiling softly, handing him a plate and nodding towards the kitchen table. 

Afterwards, Peter cleared both their plates while Chasten nursed his coffee mug and looked out the window, trying to get over his own reluctance to leave.

“I should get going,” he said. 

“Okay,” Peter replied as he sat back down across from him. He smiled, but his eyes flitted nervously. “When can I see you again?”

Chasten swallowed. He could give Peter a white lie, leave, and avoid the whole thing, but he had been so sweet, and there was such a _spark_, and now he was looking at Chasten over the rim of his coffee mug. (The unbidden thought that that would be his view if Peter blew him crossed his mind and was quickly filed away for jerk-off material for later) 

He sighed. He was going to have to go with the truth. 

“Look,” he said plaintively, wincing when Peter’s face fell and was quickly schooled into a bland expression. “Here’s the thing. I’m…” He searched for a word that could sum it all up.

“Broken,” he settled on, finally. “I’ve been in some really toxic relationships, and I’ve been burned more times than I like to remember. I’m pretty much done with dating. What I want is to find someone I can be with long term, have a family with, a life with. I really like you, Peter, but if that’s not what you want – which would be _totally_ understandable,” he rushed to emphasize, “given that you just came out – I don’t want to do this. Especially given that ‘this’ would entail a four hour round trip for every date.”

Peter nodded.

“That’s what I want, too. I’m not looking for a fling. I’ve heard there are other apps for that.” He grinned quickly and Chasten couldn’t help smiling with him. “I came out because I want to fall in love, and settle down, and raise a family. I’d like a chance to find out if that could be with you, because I really like you too.”

Chasten exhaled, newly giddy with relief and possibility. 

“Okay. I’m driving back from Michigan next Sunday, maybe I could stop by for coffee? For real, this time.”

Peter smiled and Chasten’s heart grew two sizes at the sight. “Coffee.” 

He walked Chasten to the door, and leaned in for a kiss. Chasten let his hands land on Peter’s shoulders and backed up against the door, pulling Peter with him. Peter moaned low in his throat when their hips pressed together and opened his mouth for Chasten’s tongue. He really was getting better at this fast. Chasten slid his hands around and rested them on Peter’s back, feeling the muscles move and flex with Peter’s movements. Finally, reluctantly, he broke the kiss. If Dad hadn’t been expecting him, he would stay and find out if Peter counted day two as date two, and if date two counted as ‘due time’. 

“I should head out.”

Peter nodded, licking his lips. He opened his eyes slowly, then took a step back. 

“See you Sunday.”

Chasten smiled and picked up his bag. “Sunday.”

//

_ **Is it too much if I tell you I’m already looking forward to seeing you Friday?** _

Chasten smiled as he read the text. The only thing that made him feel less instinctively uneasy about how hard and fast he was falling for Peter was the fact that Peter was clearly falling harder and faster. They’d had coffee on his way back from Michigan, and the following Friday he’d gone back for dinner and an extended make-out session on Peter’s couch. He’d wanted to sleep with Peter that night, and he was pretty damn sure Peter had wanted it too. By some unspoken agreement, though, he’d gone to bed in the guest room again, his erection slowly flagging as he tried not to obsess over how Peter’s skin had felt under his fingertips. This weekend, he was sure, would be The Weekend. They were grown-ass men and the fourth date had to be fucking _it._

_Perfect amount for a Tuesday. Was thinking I could stay until Sunday if you don’t have big plans. _

_ **Sounds great!** _

He typed out a response, then paused and bit his lip. Was this going to freak Peter out? Was it worth it? He took a breath and pressed ‘send’.

_In your room._

His heart fluttered a little as he watched the three grey dots appear, linger and then disappear a dozen times. He could imagine Peter sitting in his office, cheeks flushed, trying to think of a response. Finally, it came through. 

** _But where will I sleep? _ **

He laughed in pure relief, and was about to send a joke back when another text blinked into being.

_ **Can’t wait.** _

//

They were washing the dishes after dinner when Peter’s nerves kicked in. From one moment to the next, apropos of nothing, his normal easy confidence seemed to melt away. Chasten had to look away to hide his amused smile at a long rambling monologue about snow removal. In September. 

“Hey,” he said, touching Peter’s arm. 

Peter’s eyes were comically obviously drawn to where Chasten’s hand was resting near his elbow. Chasten bit back a laugh. “Let’s have a cup of coffee.”

“Look,” he said when they were both sitting down, facing each other. “Nothing has to happen tonight. If you’d rather I just stay in the guest room ––“

“No,” Peter interrupted. He stopped, took a breath. “Sorry. No. I’m just nervous. This is all new to me.” He smiled wryly. 

“Like…” Chasten paused, blinked. He hadn’t considered that. _Shit._ He suddenly felt anxious. “Completely new?” He swallowed, as nervous as Peter looked when he nodded. “But you’ve been dating this summer?” 

He heard himself sounding offensively incredulous and wondered if he should apologize. Peter didn’t look offended, though.

“I went on some first dates, and a couple of second dates.” He paused, looking down at his fidgeting hands. “You were my only third date. I never got as far as...” 

He trailed off and grimaced self-consciously, and Chasten was gripped with a fervent desire not to give him reason to do that again. 

“How about we go upstairs,” he suggested. “We’ll get you as far as you want to go.” 

He leaned in close, and Peter smiled. 

“I’d like that,” he whispered against Chasten’s lips. 

Peter had gotten significantly better at this over the past few weekends. Usually he’d let Chasten control their kisses, but now he seemed to want to push through his nerves, and Chasten was happy to let him. He parted his lips and moaned when Peter’s tongue curled into his mouth. When they pulled apart Chasten had to take a moment to compose himself. 

“Upstairs?” He suggested again. 

Peter nodded, and got up. Chasten smiled in a way he hoped would be reassuring, and was encouraged when he got a smile in return. 

He’d only seen glimpses of Peter’s bedroom through a door shutting or opening. Now he followed Peter in and looked around. The room was sparse, with the same paneling of dark wood as the rest of the house. The bed, at least, unlike most of Peter’s furniture, looked new-ish and not like it came from a garage sale. 

He looked back at the owner of the bed, who was watching him intently, absently picking at his fingernails. Chasten closed the distance between them in two steps and caught Peter in an embrace, kissing him soundly. Peter’s hands grasped at his waist, bunching up his shirt. Chasten didn’t pull back right away. They breathed together slowly. Chasten opened his eyes, but Peter didn’t. He stood stock-still, still breathing heavily, tension sharp in his shoulders. Chasten pulled back a few inches, but not too far. He watched Peter’s expression as he turned his next question over in his head a few times before asking:

“Are you scared?”

Peter breathed a laugh, but didn’t open his eyes.

“Yeah.”

“Of what?” Chasten asked gently, leaning in to press an open-mouthed kiss against Peter’s neck. 

“Oh, mostly that I’ll embarrass myself,” Peter said shakily, tilting his head to give Chasten better access, leaning into his touch. His hands tightened their grip on Chasten’s sides. 

Chasten drew back. 

“Hey.” Peter’s eyes fluttered open and Chasten met his gaze firmly. “You won’t. Nothing we do in here is embarrassing. It’ll be fun and feel good and maybe you’ll learn a thing or two, but it definitely won’t be embarrassing.”

“Thank you.” 

Peter’s earnest gratitude made Chasten uncomfortable in a way he couldn’t really put words to, so he kissed him again. It was a big responsibility being someone’s first. He should have known, he chastised himself, should have guessed that’s why Peter had held back. He slid his hands down Peter’s arms, lingering at the hem of his shirt. 

“Can I –”

“Yes,” Peter interrupted, a new urgency in his voice.

“Look, I don't want to make you uncomfortable.” 

“You're not,” Peter said, too quickly. “I'm just--”

He kissed him again, only breaking away to let Chasten pull his shirt over his head before finding his lips again as Chasten rested his hands on bare shoulders. It was happening. It was _really_ happening. Shit. When Peter pulled back, it was Chasten’s turn to just breathe with it all for a second. Suddenly, a hand landed carefully on his cheek. 

“Are you okay?” Peter asked quietly.

He smiled and opened his eyes. 

“I'm very okay.” 

He smiled wider when he felt a brush of fingers near the hem of his own shirt, then slowly, carefully underneath, trailing a few inches up his sides and making him shiver. He leaned in for another kiss. It’d been a while since he’d done this with someone he cared about, and the implications felt scary. But Peter kissed so softly and touched so tentatively that it was on him, Chasten realized, to set the pace. He broke the kiss but didn’t move away.

“Why don’t you take off my shirt,” he said, and felt the corners of Peter's mouth turn upward. He lifted Chasten’s shirt off him. His glasses came with the shirt, and he giggled at Peter’s disproportionately effusive nervous apology while he picked them up off the floor and put them on the night stand.

He’d never been particularly happy with his body, but it was still hard not to preen under Peter’s frankly reverent gaze, and his hands shook a little when he went for his belt. He rushed through the rest of his clothes, suddenly desperate for Peter’s skin against his own. 

When he looked up from taking off his socks, Peter was naked, and he breathed in sharply. He’d spent a lot of time the previous weeks imagining the sight now presenting itself to him, and he wasn’t disappointed. Peter for his part was focused entirely on Chasten, blue eyes roaming his body. Chasten tried to find the words for a joke, but he couldn’t think of one that wouldn’t potentially catapult Peter back into self-consciousness, so instead he reached out. 

When they made full-body contact Peter groaned deeply and desperately, and it was the sexiest thing he’d ever fucking heard. Chasten wasn’t sure how conscious Peter even was of how his hips were moving against Chasten, and he couldn’t hide a smile. 

“Come here,” he said, pulling gently at Peter’s hips as he took a step towards the bed. 

He pulled down the blanket and laid down on his side. Peter followed suit, looking slightly less dazed and more uncertain as he propped himself up on his elbow. Chasten smiled carefully. 

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Peter said, unconvincingly quickly. “Yeah, I just…” He trailed off, looking down at the sheets. 

“You just…?” Chasten prodded gently when it became clear Peter wasn’t volunteering any more information on his own. 

“It’s gonna sound stupid,” Peter replied, eyes still firmly on the sheets between them. 

“Tell me anyway.” 

“How do I know what to do? What to… ask for?” 

Chasten bit the inside of his lower lip. He shouldn’t laugh at him, because he genuinely sounded distraught, but the idea that Peter didn’t think his body would let him know what to do... Suddenly, Chasten froze. _Shit._ Peter didn’t trust his body because he and his body had been at odds for three decades. Peter was used to suppressing and distrusting his own instincts. He closed his eyes. This was rapidly becoming a much bigger deal than he’d thought it was going to be when he left his apartment that afternoon. 

“How about,” he suggested finally, after trying out and rejecting a few suggestions in his head, “you come here and kiss me? And then you tell me if that feels good?”

“I know kissing you feels good,” Peter said, looking up at him with a wry smile. 

“Well, let’s just make extra sure,” Chasten said, wagging his eyebrows and making Peter laugh. 

When he pulled back, Peter was breathing heavily. 

“So?”

Peter laughed again, opening his eyes just a little. “That felt good.” 

“Okay,” Chasten said. “Then how about you do it again, and come a little closer?”

He groaned when Peter pressed against him, and swallowed Peter’s moan in another kiss. He licked into Peter’s mouth, and rested his free hand in the small of Peter’s back, holding him in place as he rocked his hips gently forward. 

“Is that okay?” he breathed against the shell of Peter’s ear. 

“Yes.” The word was couched in a moan.

“You know you can move too, right?” 

Apparently that hadn’t really occurred to Peter, because at Chasten’s suggestion his hips snapped forward, and Chasten groaned as their dicks slid deliciously against each other. He kissed Peter again as they moved against each other, increasingly frantically, until Peter suddenly pulled away. 

“This,” he choked out breathlessly, “is going to be over really soon if we keep doing that.”

Chasten laughed. “Well, we have all weekend.”

His heart jumped at the look Peter gave him then, and he was about to say something more when Peter’s lips covered his again, and their legs tangled back up. It didn’t take long before Peter stilled against him, moaning into Chasten’s mouth as wet, sticky heat spread between them.

Peter rested his forehead against Chasten’s shoulder, breathing hard and fast. Chasten stroked his back carefully, pressing kisses against the top of his head. He felt like he was about to explode, but the feeling and sound of Peter trying – and failing – to pull himself together was an aphrodisiac good as any, so he stayed still until Peter’s breaths evened out, then he slid out of bed and procured a damp cloth to clean up. 

When he got back in bed and pulled the blanket over them both, Peter settled on his side in the crook of Chasten’s arm, circling his fingertips across Chasten’s chest and belly. The feeling made Chasten, again, painfully aware of just how in love he was with this man. The thought was terrifying.

“Can I touch you?” 

Chasten smiled at Peter’s whispered question. 

“You _are_ touching me,” he teased.

“You know what I mean,” Peter accused, curling his fingers into Chasten’s side in a tickle. 

Chasten wasn’t really that ticklish, he thought, but Peter was remarkably effective at finding the spots that made him squeal. In a flash, he was straddling Chasten, fending his hands away and tickling every inch of skin he could reach. 

“Okay,” Chasten finally hiccuped between peals of desperate laughter. “Okay, I give.”

Peter’s fingers stilled immediately, but he didn’t move from where he was sitting astride Chasten’s thighs. 

“So,” he said, biting his lower lip. “Can I touch you?”

His eyes were flitting between Chasten’s face and his crotch, and Chasten got the sense he was about to be on the receiving end of some very focused attention. He swallowed.

“Yes.”

Peter’s touch was light and hesitant at first, totally at odds with the way he’d manhandled Chasten minutes before, but all the more sweet. He traced his index finger first up, then down the length of Chasten’s dick, then tentatively wrapped his fingers around the shaft, moving his hand experimentally. He looked like he was taking note of every gasp and sigh and twitch from Chasten, gauging his reaction to every new sensation. Just before his mind blanked out, Chasten marvelled at the potential opportunities inherent to that kind of focus. Then, Peter did something with his wrist and there was no more room for coherent thought. He moaned, and tried to thrust up into Peter’s fist, but was held down by the weight of Peter straddling his thighs. Peter seemed to understand, though, and moved carefully off Chasten, nudging his thigh to make him spread them and give Peter room. 

Chasten tried to keep his eyes open, but when Peter bent down to take the head of Chasten’s cock in his mouth he had to squeeze them shut and tense every muscle in his body to keep from embarrassing himself. He opened them again to see Peter sitting back, clearly processing something, but still working Chasten with his hand. The thought crossed Chasten’s mind briefly that the angle was going to be uncomfortable for Peter really soon, but then Peter leaned in again and the problem resolved itself. He licked around the head and Chasten just had time to desperately tap his shoulder to tip him off before he was coming. 

As his consciousness slowly returned to his body, Peter took the cloth from the nightstand and cleaned Chasten up carefully. They settled back together like before, Peter’s head resting on Chasten’s shoulder, his arm across Chasten’s waist. He was quiet for so long that Chasten wondered if he’d fallen asleep. 

“That was pretty great,” he said sleepily, just as Chasten had begun to nod off. 

“Yeah,” he replied, pressing a kiss to Peter’s forehead. “It was.”

“And we still have a whole weekend,” Peter mumbled, rolling over to settle on his stomach. 

Chasten smiled, even though Peter couldn’t see his face. “Yeah, we do.”


End file.
